Age as a Moderator within Problematic Internet Use and Social Anxiety Disorder

Abstract: The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship betweensocial anxiety disorder and problematic internet use. Individuals withsocial anxiety disorder might prefer online interaction compared toface-to-face interaction. This could develop into problematic internetuse (PIU). PIU is when an individual uses the internet to the degreethat it negatively affects the individual’s life, based on Davis’ (2001)model of problematic internet use. The data was collected using anonline survey. There was a total of 484 participants in the finalanalyses, with 26.1% males, 71.5% females (Mage=27.99, SD= 10.1).First, a correlation analysis was done between social anxiety and PIU.The results showed that there was a positive correlation between socialanxiety and problematic internet use (r=.53). We then used age as amoderator to investigate if age had a moderating effect on socialanxiety and problematic internet use, using a moderation analysis. Theanalysis revealed a significant moderation effect of age, but a low leveloverall of PIU in the sample. This meant that even at high levels ofsocial anxiety, the sample did not display PIU-behaviors. Furtherresearch is needed to investigate the relationship between socialanxiety, PIU and what it looks like for different age groups.